Shopify seller tool

Shopify Profit Calculator

See your real profit per sale after Shopify’s payment processing and plan costs. Up to date for 2026.

1

Your sale and cost

COGS per unit

2

Your Shopify setup

Sets processing to 2.9% + $0.30

Payment method

Lowest cost — no extra surcharge.

Advanced — amortise the monthly plan across orders
3

Your result

Net profit

profit margin

Revenue

Shopify fees

Total costs

Markup

Shopify fee breakdown

Payment processing

Shopify Payments — 2.9% + $0.30

Third-party surcharge

Not applied — Shopify Payments waives this.

International card fee

Not applied

Plan share

Not allocated

Total Shopify fees

What fees does Shopify charge sellers in 2026?

Shopify works differently from Etsy, eBay and Amazon — it does not take a per-sale sales commission. Your cost on each order is payment processing, plus an extra surcharge if you don’t use Shopify Payments, plus your monthly plan. Looking at the plan price alone underestimates the real cost: payment processing is usually the largest variable cost.

Here is the full 2026 picture:

  • Payment processing (Shopify Payments, online card rates) — Basic 2.9% + $0.30, Grow 2.7% + $0.30, Advanced 2.5% + $0.30, Plus 2.15% + $0.30.
  • Third-party gateway surcharge — only if you do not use Shopify Payments (e.g. PayPal, Stripe). About 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.5% on Advanced, 0.20% on Plus, charged on top of the outside processor’s own fee.
  • Monthly plans Starter $5, Basic $39 ($29 if billed annually), Grow $105, Advanced $399, Plus from $2,300/mo.
  • International cards — add about 1% on top of the regular processing rate when the card was issued outside your country.

The single most expensive mistake new Shopify merchants make is running a third-party gateway on Basic. The 2% surcharge stacks on top of the processor’s own 2.9% + $0.30 — so a $50 order pays roughly $2.45 in processing instead of the $1.75 you’d pay using Shopify Payments. Across a thousand orders a month that’s $700 left on the table.

How to calculate your real Shopify profit margin

True per-sale profit on Shopify is straightforward — there is no platform commission to factor in:

Profit = Item price − Item cost − Payment processing − (Third-party surcharge) − Plan share

The “plan share” is optional — many merchants treat the monthly plan as overhead rather than a per-order cost. If you do want to allocate it, just divide the plan price by your expected monthly orders. Here’s a worked example:

Compare that to selling the same product with a third-party gateway on Basic: an extra 2% surcharge = $1.00 on this order, dropping margin to about 64.2%. Two percentage points sounds small until you multiply by every order all year.

How to use this Shopify profit calculator

  1. Enter your item price and cost. Item price is what the customer pays at checkout. Item cost is your COGS for one unit.
  2. Pick your plan. The dropdown sets the right Shopify Payments rate and surcharge for that plan.
  3. Pick your payment method. Shopify Payments uses the plan’s rate with no surcharge. Third-party shows fields for your processor’s own rate (default Stripe’s 2.9% + $0.30) plus Shopify’s surcharge.
  4. Toggle international and amortisation (optional). International cards add 1%. Amortising the monthly plan across your expected order volume gives a more realistic per-order cost.

Ways to increase your Shopify profit margin

  • Use Shopify Payments wherever it’s available. The third-party surcharge is the easiest fee to eliminate entirely.
  • Bill the plan annually. Basic drops from $39 to $29, a 26% saving on overhead.
  • Upgrade plans for the processing rate, not the features. Once you’re reliably doing $20–30k/month, the lower rate on Grow or Advanced often pays for itself.
  • Encourage larger orders. The $0.30 fixed fee per transaction disproportionately hurts low-priced items. Bundles and minimum-order thresholds dilute it across more revenue.
  • Watch app subscriptions. They’re not in this calculator because they aren’t per-sale, but it’s easy to spend $100–300/mo on apps that don’t pay for themselves.

Shopify fees: frequently asked questions

How much does Shopify take from each sale in 2026?

Unlike Etsy, eBay or Amazon, Shopify does not take a per-sale commission. Your cost on each order is payment processing — about 2.9% + $0.30 on the Basic plan with Shopify Payments — plus a share of your monthly plan if you allocate it per order. On a $50 sale that's roughly $1.75 in processing on Basic, or about $1.40 on Grow. The 'fee' that really hurts is the third-party gateway surcharge when you don't use Shopify Payments.

What is Shopify Payments and why does it matter for fees?

Shopify Payments is Shopify's own card processor. Using it gives you the plan's published rate (2.9% + $0.30 on Basic down to 2.15% + $0.30 on Plus) with no extra surcharge. If you process cards through a third party — Stripe, PayPal, Braintree — you pay that processor's own fee plus a Shopify surcharge of 2.0% (Basic), 1.0% (Grow), 0.5% (Advanced), or 0.20% (Plus). For most merchants, the surcharge alone makes Shopify Payments the cheaper option.

How much do Shopify plans cost in 2026?

Monthly: Starter $5, Basic $39 ($29 if billed annually), Grow $105, Advanced $399, and Plus from $2,300. The plan price alone underestimates the real cost — payment processing is usually the largest variable cost, and the gap between the plans' processing rates often matters more than the subscription gap.

When is it worth upgrading from Basic to Grow?

Run the numbers in the calculator above. Grow saves 0.2 percentage points on processing (2.9% to 2.7%), so on $100,000/year in revenue that's $200 saved — not enough to justify the extra $66/month ($792/year) by itself. Grow is usually worth it for the extra staff accounts, lower third-party surcharge if you must use one, and shipping discounts — not the processing rate alone.

What does Shopify charge for international cards?

Shopify adds about 1% to the payment processing fee when the card used was issued outside your country. It's small per sale but adds up if a meaningful share of your traffic is international. The calculator above lets you toggle this on to see the impact.

How is the Shopify Starter plan different?

Starter ($5/mo) is Shopify's lightest product — built for selling through social DMs, link-in-bio and a single product page rather than a full storefront. Processing is significantly higher (about 5% on Starter) because the subscription is so cheap. It's a fit for casual sellers; most growing brands move up to Basic quickly.

Does Shopify charge a transaction fee on the item price?

No — there is no Shopify sales commission like Etsy's 6.5% or Amazon's 15%. Your cost on each order is just payment processing (and Shopify's surcharge if you use a third party). This is the headline difference between Shopify and the marketplace platforms: you pay a fixed monthly plan and a processing fee, but Shopify does not take a percentage of the sale itself.

How accurate is this calculator?

The Shopify Payments rates and surcharges in this calculator are the published 2026 figures for the US market. When you select the third-party option you can enter your processor's own rate (defaults to Stripe's standard 2.9% + $0.30). For exact figures on an existing store, check the 'Bills' section in your Shopify admin — your invoice shows the exact processing rate Shopify is using for your account.

Shopify rate figures current as of 2026. Shopify updates pricing periodically — always cross-check the latest plan and processing rate on the official Shopify pricing page before committing to a plan.